Using marketing survey templates

What’s the right path for your business or organization? Before you finalize things like your brand’s messaging, content plan, and website design, get feedback from your target audience with a marketing survey.

Marketing surveys help you understand your target audience’s needs and wants, allowing you to make informed decisions about your business.

So when would you use marketing surveys? And what do potential questionnaires look like? We’ll answer both of these questions on this page, starting with the most popular use cases for marketing surveys.

How to use marketing surveys

All in all, marketing surveys are a great way to ask for feedback on new products, services, and features. Survey customers as you pilot new offerings—and course-correct quickly if you’re off target. Beta-test your mobile app, preview your latest ad campaign, or assess the impact of a new bundled offer, and translate those insights into profitable strategies.

Here are some of the most popular uses for marketing surveys on SurveyMonkey:

Brand tracking – Your target audience’s awareness and perception of your organization are likely to change over time. Use surveys to get a more holistic understanding of your brand and to see how it compares with that of rivals. Also, survey before and after major marketing initiatives to accurately track the impact they have on your brand.

Content creation – Need help finding a topic for your next blog post? Want to pick out a strong story for an upcoming whitepaper? Feedback from your target audience can help guide the direction of your content—and improve it. Who knows? The content you end up creating might just go viral in your target market. Our complete guide to using surveys for content marketing will teach you everything you need to know to use surveys to conduct your own original research for content marketing.

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Market research — What’s the appetite for a new product or service you’re designing? Test the market, modify your target customer segments, and create a launch plan based on the feedback you receive. Ask: “If our new product or service were available today, how likely would you be to recommend it?”

New product development — Use frequent surveying as part of agile product development in your business, iterating designs based on user feedback. Have a new mobile app you think will be a hit? Test it with your target audience. Ask: “What do you like most about our new product?” or “What changes would most improve our new product?” Modify proposed product features and roadmaps based on user preferences.

User experience design — Survey target audiences to determine their behavior. This includes their use of smartphones, web applications, and general buying patterns. Use survey feedback to then design more engaging user experiences while improving the positioning and promotion of your products. As part of your marketing plan, determine how good or bad the user experience on your website is by surveying your customers. Our website feedback survey template can help you get started.

Market research — Use this classic 20-question survey to explore your customers’ opinions of your new product or service, their preference for yours over the competition’s, and their willingness to recommend.

New product research — With 10 quick questions, this survey lets you find out what your customers think about your new product – what they like, what they don’t, and if they prefer it to the competition’s.

New service research — Get your target customers’ opinions of the new service you’re introducing with this 10-question survey.

The Net Promoter® Score — Discover customer sentiment and willingness to recommend your business with a single question: “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?” The responses may be influenced by previous marketing initiatives and help guide your team’s future efforts

Website feedback — Use this 11-question survey to discover how you can optimize your online experience for customers and prospects.

App feedback — As part of your go-to-market research, use this 6-question survey to find out if it makes sense to create a mobile app for your product or service.

Having a hard time finding enough of the right contacts to survey? Use SurveyMonkey Audience to reach your target market and get your questions answered, quickly.

Please note: Some survey templates are only available in English.

Tips for getting a higher response rate

Here are some ways you can encourage your respondents to complete your surveys. For more guidance, read our guides on how to conduct and create surveys.

Introduce your objective. Provide context with a brief sentence. Tell survey takers why you’re asking these questions and how their feedback will help, e.g. “Your suggestions will help us to better understand how we can deliver the services you want most.” A good place to do this would be in the survey’s introduction.

Keep it short and focused. Make sure each question brings you closer to your goal. Respect survey takers’ time, and word questions clearly.

Pre-test your survey. Pre-test your survey with a few members of your intended audience. You might uncover inconsistencies or unexpected question interpretations.

Keep rating scale questions consistent. If you’re using Likert rating scales, use the same points system throughout your survey. If 1 means “extremely satisfied” and 5 means “extremely dissatisfied,” maintain this scale for all questions.